JOINT DECLARATION

Time is of the essence and, as underscored in Pope Francis and Obama’s messages, it is essential to obtain specific commitments to protect the environment worldwide, to fulfill our responsibilities to future generations that can no longer be postponed. The Paris Environmental Summit that will be held next December cannot fail to take urgent measures to safeguard the habitability of the earth.

Positive signs to be taken into account:

The recent Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Ecology commences by underscoring that “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change”. And he adds, “Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded”.

President Obama’s significant decision, with an emergency plan against climate change saying that “We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it”.

President Mikhail Gorbachev stated in his speech at the International Climate Change Symposium in Rome, 27-29 May 2015 that “Paris is the last chance to stay below 2 degrees Celsius beyond the pre-industrial temperature”.